All 3, including husband, receive life sentences

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The three men accused of first degree murder in the shooting death of Kitchener’s Nadia Gehl three years ago, her husband Ron Cyr, and his hired hit men, Nashat Qahwash and Dennis Zvolensky, have all been found guilty.

The jury deliberated for almost two days, following a nearly 4-month trial.

Gehl, 28, was shot and killed on a trail near her home in February 2009.

Court heard 34-year-old Cyr, worked at her uncle’s law firm and hired Qahwash and Zvolensky, both 27, to kill his wife.

After the verdict was issued, 2 of the 3 men elected not to speak, Cyr, and Zvolensky. Qahwash used his right to speak and said, “I told the truth, and the system failed me.” Qahwash was visibly upset, wiping tears from his eyes, rubbing his face and neck, and nervously pivoting from side to side.

Zvolensky didn’t flinch. He mostly starred straight ahead while waiting for the jury right through the verdict being delivered.

Aside from hanging his head at one point, Cyr didn’t appear to show emotion.

Once the guilty verdict was issued, and the sentencing delivered, the Gehl family, who lined the right side of the courtroom, were seen hugging and kissing one another.

Nadia’s mother, Pat Gehl, said while the guilty verdict brings her some closure, it doesn’t bring her daughter back.

“Maybe I can stop looking at her picture and crying.” said Pat Gehl, outside the courthouse in Hamilton. She noted she has had a hard time deciding what to do when Gehl & Cyr’s wedding picture, “we don’t know whether we should hang it up, or cut him off, or what we do.”

Nadia’s father, Nick Gehl, said the thing about this trial that bothers him the most, “my daughter coming out of her house, being care-free, just like she always was, and turning around and seeing some bastard, who she knew, shooting her. The last thing she saw was that, and then dying in a snowbank, by herself.”